UWI TODAY is pleased to share the address of Campus Principal Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine delivered at UWI St Augustine’s 2022 Matriculation ceremony.
On behalf of the St Augustine campus community, I am pleased to offer a special welcome to the newest members of our UWI St Augustine family and I refer, not just to our students, but to their family and friends who now form a critical support system as they journey through university life.
Congratulations on obtaining a place at The University of the West Indies St Augustine campus. Here, you will discover your passion and create your future. At the end of this stage of your life, you will find yourself empowered - practically and emotionally - to strike out and be your best selves. Matriculation is where it all formally begins.
Your name is placed upon the matricula or roll of members of The University of the West Indies. By signing and taking the oath at this ceremony, you are agreeing to abide by The UWI’s rules and regulations, as well as codes of conduct.
Our pledge is to provide a stimulating academic and social environment so that you may grow and achieve your full potential.
In our 70 plus years of existence, The UWI’s commitment to our people has never wavered. We have always stepped up and stepped forward to lend support and guidance to Caribbean societies grappling with unprecedented challenges and change - the COVID-19 pandemic is only a recent example of this hands-on support.
We have never shirked our responsibility to the region that gave us birth. Now, as new members of The UWI community, you have joined in this responsibility. We will prepare you, our future leaders, to meet those challenges and turn them into opportunities.
Here are some of the challenges that we are facing as emerging nations, as people of the world. They are all issues on which I will focus during my tenure as Campus Principal. I plan to bring you all along with me because you are the ones who will continue the fight for justice for all, and economic and ecological sustainability.
Climate change and climate justice with regard to human rights remain top of mind as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana move forward as oil and gas economies. We must set the example in the greening of our Campus, in our recycling, upcycling, and repurposing activities.
Our vulnerability in the area of food security was brought to the fore as we faced a global pandemic and then war in Ukraine. Rising food prices continue to affect us all. In that regard, we will especially support the work of our Faculty of Food and Agriculture, the first faculty to be established on the St Augustine campus and, in fact, predating it as the West Indian Agricultural College, established in 1921 on these very grounds.
I can tell you that, over the period since 1948, The University of the West Indies has given this region some 240,000 graduates, including 25 heads of government and 1 Nobel Laureate. There is probably no sector of Caribbean society - public or private, from the judiciary, civil society, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all the professions - in which UWI graduates are not found. Just as many have naturally risen to the top internationally, and are among our Caribbean diaspora of UWI alumni.
You should take pride – Pelican Pride – in being a part of one of just two regional universities in the world. The University of the West Indies stretches from Belize in Central America to right here in Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean.
This St Augustine Campus is one of five regional campuses. Even more, The UWI lays claim to being one of the world’s most globalised universities, with 10 global centres spread across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
You are now a student of a university that is ranked by the Times Higher Education ranking system as among the top 1.5 percent in the world, and number one in the Caribbean. In fact, we are the only ranked university in the Caribbean. This ranking is based on a current global field of some 30,000 universities and elite research institutes.
Times Higher Education uses such criteria as teaching, research, industry income, international outlook, and citations. Most significant among these are international outlook and citations since we are infinitely smaller, younger, and less resourced than many of our competitors on the list Yet, the very high scores given us for ‘citations’ and ‘international outlook’ have placed us among the top 75 percentile of universities across the globe in those criteria.
All of this is to say that, in spite of being a relatively young institution – though slightly older than an independent Trinidad and Tobago – with limited access to financial and development resources, The UWI has punched above its weight and built a solid reputation as a higher education leader through resilience, perseverance, innovation, and entrepreneurial activity.
Now, you have come. You will, in turn, be expected to take up the responsibility for driving our region forward towards an equal opportunity society.
You will need resilience, moral strength, and compassion, for there is much that is wrong in our society that needs fixing and, too often, the will to make needed change is lacking; the courage to fly in the face of the modus operandi fails; and we prefer to turn our faces from the disadvantaged and inequalities in our midst
Our region needs leaders at every level with a strong connection of country and region, and the emotional intelligence to make a positive difference.
You are in training to pick up those leadership roles.
At St Augustine, you will receive the skillsets and uncover vast reservoirs of excellence to begin the process of applying new knowledge to world problems. Through your total immersion in UWI life, you will make the connections and expand beyond previously insular horizons to see the beauty and grace in each Caribbean territory. As “One UWI”, you will continue to be the main unifying force of this “One Caribbean”, connected by much more than the Caribbean Sea, but by an infinite wellspring of vitality that has survived slavery, indentureship, and colonialism.
We have a fierce understanding of who we are and how much we can achieve in spite of being micro-states in a global jungle.
Remember, though, we achieve nothing in isolation.
Success here at St Augustine can be attributed to many factors: our talented and dedicated faculty; the energy, enthusiasm, and inventiveness of graduate and undergraduate students; the dedication of excellent staff; the passion of our alumni to make a difference in their communities; and the engagement of our many donors, partners and supporters.
Success also requires you to be actively participative in and out of the lecture halls. As newly minted members of the St Augustine campus and the Student Guild, you are expected to take your civic responsibility seriously. Become involved and invested in your community – here and/or where you live. Always remember the adage, to whom much is given, much is expected.
On a personal and individual basis, it is the people who are closest to us who will keep our spirits up and hold us steadfast in our goals. Some of them are present here today.
To you, I say, know that you will walk every step of the road with your student, and you may find on occasion that your role becomes even more important than all of those mentioned above.
I offer one final welcome and best wishes to our new UWI members, as well as one final reminder: you are not on this journey alone.
I thank you.
